Mersey Flats
The traditional watercraft of the Northwest of England, this type of vessel was a long-lived, evolving, design with many unique features as well as some similarities to other regional varieties such as the Humber Keel. The likelihood is that builders adopted certain traits from ships and boats of other areas having conducted repair and rebuilding work on visiting traders over the years. They were actually built from North Wales up the Cheshire and Lancashire (and what is today Merseyside and Cumbria) coasts up as far as the Scottish borders.
Flats developed from older medieval craft that plied the Mersey, Weaver, Dee, and other local rivers. They eventually became a recognisable type, built with specific waterways in mind and so consisting of several sub-types. Thus, as well as "outside" and "inside" types (one for coastal work beyond the rivers, the other for river and canal use only), we see such terms as Barrow, Bridgewater (or "Duker", after the Duke of Bridgewater who built the canal named after him), Douglas, Rochdale, or Weaver Flat (and others), each designed for the restrictions of individual dock or canal systems they were to trade upon and to. The Weaver Flat is a source of some controversy in historical research circles in that some (such as the late Michael Stammers) argue these were not a separate type, perhaps just continuing an older style of craft with a transom stern, and not developing with the rest of the cadre. The more compelling argument is that of the also deceased Edward Paget-Tomlinson, who argued that this type continued to exist after the changes to the mainstream Mersey Flat, and continued in use on the Weaver as a separate entity. That they further developed is evidenced by the continued existence of the shipyards and boat yards on that river that continued this tradition and surviving pictures of these vessels as their design grew in size over the years. As for the Bridgewater Flats, this fleet later developed three distinct types: The River Flats that were too big to enter the dock system at Runcorn; the Preston Flats that went as far as Preston Brook (where the Bridgewater meets the Trent & Mersey); and the Manchester Flats that could complete the voyage to that city.
There was also reference made to "Mast Flats" and "Cut Flats". The former were those with a mast, for sailing the larger canals, the rivers and the open sea; and the latter were those without a mast, designed for use on the canals, or "cuts" and meant to be hauled by people or horses. The biggest flats were used as coasters and some were employed on quite heroic voyages in defiance of weather, freeboard, and perhaps common sense!
No doubt there were a variety of localised names in use also, perhaps only used by certain firms or by the townsfolk of specific places; such was the nature of dialect and language, with the historical isolation of settlements from each other changing with communications links in the canal age bringing communities and ideas together. This may well have led to some hybrid terms and names appearing. There were also the nicknames given to vessels of certain fleets, such "Black Flats" or "Salties" for the Salt Union vessels with their black hulls. Another term heard was "Number One", the name applied to a boatman who also owned his vessel. It was similarly applied to the vessel itself.
The older flats had a transom (or "square") stern, some coasting flats developing the much more seaworthy rounded version. The round-sterned coasters were more akin to the schooners built locally and certainly many such vessels thus described at their launch were actually flats, but rigged as per their usually larger cousins. Similarly were there lighters, barges, ketches (fitted with a bowsprit), sloops (as most early flats were rigged), and other types of vessel that were, in terms of their hulls, essentially Mersey Flats. Barrow Flats, for example, were schooners built in that town and designed for the needs of the dock system there, but essentially of a Mersey Flat pedigree.
General arrangements were a flush deck, a long, heavily cambered, main hatch (perhaps divided into two in some vessels), and a fore hatch leading to the forepeak store below deck in larger examples. An after cabin provided the crew their berths and was accessed via a hatch or scuttle near the steering position at the stern. Conning was via a long tiller attached to a large rudder. They were deep-draft vessels, carvel-built, where the planks butt up against each other (as opposed to clinker-built, where the planks overlap), with a more-or-less flat bottom (varying in degrees across the sub-types of flat and dependent upon the dimensions of the waterways, and their locks, for which they were designed).
The stem was curved and the bow and stern both had four or five cant frames which were supported by heavy breasthooks. The main frames were formed from a deck and top timber that were joined by what was called a "doubling piece". All vessels sported a heavy keelson and were very sturdy indeed. These attributes were unique to the Mersey Flat and were continued into the modern varieties that were composite-built with wood planking over iron or, later, steel frames. Very few flats had bulwarks around the upperdeck, and not all had rails in lieu. Some had only quarter or stern rails, and all those bereft of bulwarks were known as Bare Flats.
Most flats were single-masted (apart from the larger vessels aluded to above that were styled as schooners, say, but built along the lines of a flat). By the late 19th Century, though, ketch-rigged two-masted flats appeared that were known as "Jigger Flats". This is because the after mast, usually called the mizzen, was known as the jigger.
Speed for these vessels varied by size and how they were rigged. Those with schooner rig would have varied in ability from those sloop-rigged as the true, traditional, flats for example. Dave Keenan sailed OAKDALE for many years using the rig he constructed for her along traditional lines and he averaged 3 knots. This was a typical speed and part of the reason these vessels used to be at sea for 48 hours maximum at a time (usually, but see above for a note on some brave souls who pushed this), just enough to get them up and down the Northwest coast for the trading purposes for which they were built.
For further information and more detail on rigs, please see the further reading list on the main page of this website.